#17 – Dear Spring

Dear Spring, your husband
was slacking at his job – I don’t think
Winter showed up more than twice
in all his scheduled months. And so,
you will find it harder to claw
my eyes out, as you usually do. Already

it is April, and I hardly had the chance
to miss your sister. The living, as they say,is easy, and it has been right through.

I saw a girl in short-shorts on Shore Road,
smack-dab in the middle of February. The radio
said it was the warmest winter
on record, and the radio
knows these things.

Of course, you got your swipe in,
your petty trick – froze all the apple blossoms
in the one coldest night, and now
when your charming lover comes calling
this September, we will mourn fresh cider
and think of you
as cruel, just as you wish.

But my heart hardly slowed its beat
all the dark months, and Winter gave ground nearly
all at once, instead of inch
by bitter inch in your usual
marital bicker and grudge.

So here we are now. Perhaps
you thought you’d won something,
cheating cuckold Winter of his due, dragging Fall
into the middle of things. But look –
the lillies may be unfolding their hands,
sweet as any year – but this year
I had not forgotten
the word flower, so the bright blade of your beauty
is dulled.